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6/19/06

Just imagine the plight of a handful of underprivileged students in each institution/hostel who are being humiliated daily in the name of anti reservation protest.

SOME SCENES at a medical college:

a) A student with his friends stands at the door of a classroom and questions each student entering, "Are you a quota student?" While many say "no" to him, to some he says, "Hello! I know you are a quota student," and all of them in the group laugh at that student.

b) A lecturer enters the classroom to find many students sporting a black band on their arms. He smiles at the students and says, "So you are protesting against quota? Well, you people can marry SCs/STs/OBCs and get a quota... So why don't you try?" He smiles at the students sarcastically. Inspired by the "advice" of their lecturer, one student tells her neighbour (who is an ST student), "If you have a brother tell me, I will marry him and I will also get reservation."

c) Many backward caste students are bombarded with humiliating mobile messages by their friends. Here is a sample: "From now onwards, if a SC/ST student scores 4 runs, it's equal to 8 runs. If he scores 50 runs, it is considered a century..." Another SMS goes like this: "One doctor killed a patient though he was a qualified doctor, why? Because he was a non-meritorious reserved candidate! **** [expletive removed] reservation and reserved candidates" (Not to mention another SMS which made mockery of Arjun Singh in a most indecent way).

d) Students at the hostel decide to switch off their lights for five minutes to protest. But some students are not bothered. Now, other students start irritating these students by singing songs containing the words "quota" and "reservation." Humiliated over this, these students decide to accompany other students the next day for their protest march.

e) Students get their test marks. One student looks at the marks of another student and comments: "Why did you score so high? You have quota... Don't take the risk of scoring so much."

The atmosphere at most other institutions in the country is not much different from this. It is worse in some places. So, this is the behaviour of the "educated" and "enlightened" youth fighting for "equality!" I thought that caste discrimination was slowly getting erased from the minds of the people. But within a span of a month, I learnt that this discrimination was more present in the educated class of people.

News channels had time and patience to report about a hoax SMS, which went like this: "Two students die at Delhi. Media prevented from covering. Forward this to all. Spread it like fire." But none of them bothered to report about the humiliating nonsense messages. News channels showed the anti-quota protestors as heroes (With some patriotic music in the background!) But they had no time to cover the pro-reservation protests. Inefficient debaters were invited to argue in favour of reservation.

The cause for such outrage according to me is the movie Rang de Basanti that has influenced most of the youth including me. But many have not understood the real essence of the movie. It called upon the youth to awaken for the nation. But here, our youth have awakened for their own benefit, without any genuine concern. And they are acting in a wrong way! Can any one justify their "humiliation" policy of protests?

Just imagine the plight of a handful of underprivileged students in each institution/hostel who are being humiliated daily in the name of protest. None of the media has covered this issue. The protesting students complained of reduction of seats. The Prime Minister offered an increase in seats, but these students rejected the offer. What does this imply? Are these students jealous of other backward students?

They say that merit gets compromised. But is the merit not compromised when thousands among them got admitted paying lakhs of rupees for management quota seats with less percentage? Why didn't they protest when commercialization of education was on its way? If such is the hatred attitude of these "educated, egalitarian" students towards their fellow citizens, I can't imagine the dangerous position of India when these youth join our system. These students are likely to become oppressive rulers of our country in the future.